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LA Phil 2016-17

The LA Philharmonic has announced its 2016-17 season, and, as usual, it makes most other orchestras look dull by comparison. There are twenty-one commissions and fourteen world premières, including new works by Kate Soper, Mario Diaz de León, James Matheson, and Gerald Barry (an evening-length piece entitled Alice's Adventures Under Ground). The major festival offering is a week of music from Iceland, co-curated by Esa-Pekka Salonen and Daníel Bjarnason. Gustavo Dudamel focuses on older fare, surveying Schubert symphonies, Mahler orchestral songs, and the Bartók piano concertos (with Yuja Wang), although he also addresses a number of contemporary works, including Andrew Norman's sprawling Play. The Schoenberg family will be happy to see the master's Piano Concerto sharing space with Mozart. John Adams's seventieth birthday is marked by performances of El Niño and Nixon in China. Thomas Adès is on hand to conduct his Totentanz and the Barry première. And Hopscotch mastermind Yuval Sharon, beginning a term as "artist-collaborator," presents an evening of Schubert songs and Beckett plays, featuring Ian Bostridge, and a staging of Lou Harrison's pioneering gay opera Young Caesar. The schedule is light on female composers, although that may change as more details of the Icelandic festival are announced. Deborah Borda, the orchestra's president, told Richard Ginell of Musical Americathat "Björk might well be appearing with the Iceland Symphony."